"Obviously it was a hard fought game. It wasn't the prettiest of games, and we lost some focus there. We saw some plays we haven't seen in a while in terms of offensive execution, and lost some focus in terms of missing free throws. That's part of it, but that happens sometimes. I'm happy with how we finished out and ultimately got the win. Winning is hard, and I'm proud of the three freshmen and they all gave something tonight."

On the play of the Tigers freshmen...

"Scoring is important, but I am proud of the way they scrapped tonight. Torren (Jones) had three steals, at the end and Jonathan (Williams, III) affected a lot of shots with three blocks. That's great production out of both of those guys. Wes (Clark) is a tough kid. I think he battles. All those guys are getting better and better."

On what the mentality was at halftime after only scoring 20 points...

"We didn't panic. It's conference play, and it's going to happen. Just look across the country there and there are other scores like that too. We just missed some shots. I also think that we weren't ourselves in terms of taking good shots. I think we had some plays where we weren't sharing as well as we had been."

On Missouri's past three wins...

"We've been in three tight ball games, so nothing is guaranteed for us. We shouldn't be surprised when this happens. We've seen everything. We've played three different styles. We played Arkansas and we had to adjust on how we played against them. Tennessee is a throw it in the post and bang you around type of team. Tonight we played Vanderbilt who is a very deliberate team. They do a lot of screening action, then they do screen on screen action. A couple of times our freshmen got lost, but they adjusted well and I'm proud that against three different styles we came away with three wins."

On the first half and what Vanderbilt was doing or if Missouri just wasn't making shots...

"I don't think we were making shots. Vanderbilt did a good job on defense, but you know we just have to make shots. I think it was just one of those focus things that Coach was talking about."

Is it hard when a team plays that deliberately and uses as much shot clock as they did...

"Yeah I think it's tough just because they're running a lot of clock and making us play defense for a long possession, but we just have to stay focused and locked in on defense and not have any lapses when it gets down to five and ten seconds. Not foul and give them another opportunity to put up another 35-second shot clock.

On what was said at halftime...

"Really just do what we do, push the ball, make shots, and just not lose the shooters like we did in the first half. They had some easy looks and we had some defensive let-downs, but I think we tightened up our defense in the second half and finished the game."

On going into the half with such a low scoring game...

"Yeah I think it's strange. It was tough, but we knew we were going to pick it up in the second half and make shots. We have confidence in our offense and we knew we were going to score."

On emphasizing not losing Odom after his performance in the last match-up in Nashville...

"That was a big emphasis on what we did, not losing the shooters. Odon was 2-9 from the 3 and 3-13 from the field so I think we did our job on him and that's a team effort to run a shooter like that into tough shots."

Collectively did you guys feel like you had to pick up Jabari...

"I think there was a solar eclipse tonight or something because you rarely see him miss shots that he's used to taking and making. I think this is just a one-time game. He's human like everybody else. He's going to be right back to his old self in these next games."

Did you feel like you needed to bounce back after a season-low on Saturday...

"Not really. I think I tweeted after last game it's about getting wins not about individual play. We just have to come ready and stay with the same focus, same confidence, and stay even keel the rest of these games."

Three in a row does this help you going on the road Saturday to travel...

"It gives us confidence, but going to Alabama is going to be tough. They have one of the best guards in our league and we're just going to have to lock him in and play defense, rebound, and do what we do."

Vanderbilt's Coach was surprised to see you come off the bench and do what you did. Your thoughts on playing the game you had...

"I just played with confidence from our leaders like Jabari (Brown), Jordan (Clarkson) and EJ (Ross). They keep me ready to go so I just stepped in with confidence and made shots when the opportunity came up."

How much would you say your confidence has grown this season...

"It has just come throughout the season. Throughout the beginning of the season I was having a few struggles, but they just kept me focused, kept me going, kept encouraging me, and I just took on the challenge."

On transition in the first and second half...

"Our game is more fast-paced and open court type of play so we tried to get in transition as much as possible, and Vanderbilt just played great defense at times and we weren't getting stops like we needed to off the rebounds. That kind of slowed us down, but we changed in the second half."

Vanderbilt Post-Game Quotes

Vanderbilt Head Coach, Kevin Stallings

Opening Statement...

"We were close, but not close enough. I thought our team played with really good purpose. Kyle Fuller did not have his best game in terms of shooting and that hurt us. We don't have a lot of margin for error for a guy to be off or have a bad night. Never the less, our kids really competed and Damian Jones did a good job. Shelby Moats came off the bench and gave us a huge lift in the second half. Missouri is a very difficult team to guard, and they did some really nice things against zones. We were trying to play some zone, and keep our guys a little fresher. They (Missouri) have some really good shooters and they do some smart things in their zone attack. They got us on a few of them. We have to give them credit because they did what they had to do to win the game."

On Missouri's adjustments in the second half...

"I thought Missouri made some adjustments in the second half. They went to a different attack against our zone. The big one they got us on was when they ball screened the zone."

On tonight's low score after the first half...

"I didn't expect such a low score in the first half. I also didn't expect us to hold them to 20 points. I've seen us get 21 points before. That's not uncommon, but to hold them (Missouri) to 20 was more of a surprise to me."

"I just don't think it was his night. He never got into a flow. Whether we had something to do with that defensively or not, I don't know. So, it had to do more with him than with us. He got us in the first game and we did a better job on (Jordan) Clarkson and (Earnest) Ross in the first game. Those two played better tonight. That is why they are so difficult because they have some margin of error with three high scoring guys."

Vanderbilt Player Quotes

Vanderbilt Forward, Damian Jones

On slowing the tempo of the game down...

"Yes, we knew they were a transition team off of misses and makes. We knew that we had to get back and stop them on defense."